Trouble brews when we steal from the poor and give to the rich.

The man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children, and then sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hand.

We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination.

Man, all lives matter.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

We need to have business leaders who live by deep, strong principles.

I’ve been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that’s kind of a religious belief. I mean, it’s at least a moral belief.

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.

When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

So far as I am concerned, I could not be accused of having set eyes, or having wished to set eyes, upon Darius‘ wife: on the contrary, I have refused even to listen to those who spoke to me of her beauty.

Unfortunately, in a recession, the people who suffer the most aren’t the rich, but the wanna-be rich and the poor.

When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that’s a violation of basic human rights.

A calling is you feel – you look out and see the need – maybe it’s the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it’s the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was – felt called.

The capitalist system is about taking from the Earth and from the other great commodity, labour. What’s happening with this system is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the only way out of it is supposed to be growth. But growth is debt. It’s going to make the situation worse.

Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?

The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.

We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism.

I feel a distaste for hunting, first because of a kind of Buddhist respect for the unity and sacredness of all life, and also because the pursuit of a hare or chamois strikes me as a kind of ‚escape of energy,‘ that is, the expenditure of our effort in an illusory end, one devoid of profit.

I think God gives every one of us our own will, and unfortunately, some people choose to do evil things with it.

We were poor, but we smiled.

There is plenty of building material and more than enough manpower to make a decent home for every Cuban. But if we continue to wait for the golden calf, a thousand years will have gone by, and the problem will remain the same.

There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty.

Charity creates a multitude of sins.

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

Every sin is the result of a collaboration.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

I grew up in the South under segregation. So, I know what terrorism feels like – when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn’t look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. I mean, that’s terrorism, too.

Those who commit injustice bear the greatest burden.

It’s so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

Honor is the reward of virtue.

The time has come for all evangelists to practice full financial disclosure. The world is watching how we walk and how we talk. We must have the highest standards of morality, ethics and integrity if we are to continue to have influence.

Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

Justice means minding one’s own business and not meddling with other men’s concerns.

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.

Say there’s a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter – for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that’s saying is that he’s living a fantasy life of rebellion.

The computer brings out the worst in some people.

There is no question that liberals do an impressive job of expressing concern for blacks. But do the intentions expressed in their words match the actual consequences of their deeds?

I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

Abortion isn’t a lesser evil, it’s a crime. Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.

When you look at a corporation, just like when you look at a slave owner, you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual. So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous. The individuals participating in them may be the nicest guys you can imagine.

Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.

I’m skeptical of any mission that has advertisers at its centerpiece.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature – opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

When you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them. Point out what a waste it is to hate, and you could open their eyes.

Fear is the mother of morality.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.